Saturday, July 23, 2011

God bless LT who has been posting like a madman, as always, right through the dog days of summer. Meanwhile I am posting barely once a week. Oh well what can I say? Slacker. ;)

LT had a post up today about Kevin Pendergrast and his drafting record. What interested me was LT's assertion that Pendergrast's record was average or a hair above average.

This struck me as generous. LT's top five from this time period included Kyle Brodziak, a player I like, but if he is number five then I think you have a problem. And of course the Oilers do. They are shitty and have been for years. Some of this is because management puts together poor clubs and part of this is because of poor development but a lot of it has to do with poor drafting.

So here is what I did. I looked at every club between 2001 and 2007. I ignored all top five picks - Pendergrast had only one top ten pick, Gagner, who was number six in 2007.

This is a snapshot mind you. Pendergrast could look much better in a few years because there are still many players whose careers are just getting started. Of course this is true for every club so he may actually fall further down the list.

What I've done is listed guys who have spent some significant time in the NHL. A guy like Liam Reddox makes the list, Alex Plante does not. I'm sure I have missed some tweeners for some clubs. I'm not sure who the Panthers' equivalent of Liam Reddox is. Really though for this exercise its not very important.

I'm going to break this up over a number of posts just to make it easier to look at. I hope you find it interesting - unfortunately as an Oilers' fan its disheartening.

The Oilers had a ton of quantity. Plante and Nash could still be players too. The quality, however, is seriously lacking. Its a long list of tweeners and a few of these guys are out of the NHL or on the bubble. Hemsky was a home run obviously and Stoll, Greene, Brodziak and Gagner are established NHL players. Pendergrast's legacy could change, a lot, if Gagner blossoms, if Cogliano becomes a player and if Dubnyk, Petry, Peckham and Omark all establish themselves as quality. But until then his work is clearly second division. Don't believe me? Read on. Here are my top five:

Nobody out of 2006 or 2007 yet except those lottery picks so you might nick them for those but this list is fantastic in terms of quality and quanity. In five years the Hawks drafted two quality NHL starting goaltenders, three quarters of their top four D as well as another top four Dman and Babchuk and three top six forwards (I include Byfuglien as a forward here), a promising guy in Bickell and a few tweeners.

Flyers are a funny team. Its either home runs or complete misses with very little in between. The top six here is probably the best out there - Carter, Richards, Sharp, Seidenberg, Downie, Giroux - plus there are some decent tweeners but no goaltending and a lot of zeroes on the board. You might rank them lower but the core they drafted here is fantastic.

Really terrific and could really be ranked higher even now. There is no Keith or Richards on the list is why I have them a little lower. A half dozen top nine forwards at least plus a starting goalie and some quality defencemen.

This could be number one as well and may be when all is said and done. Helped out by the fact that there are three top tens of course but nine of these guys are second rounders or lower and Pavelski, Clowe, Mitchell and Ehrhoff are all triple digit draftees. Crazy.